A Personal Update: Family, Work, And A Project

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If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you have probably noticed that my frequency in publishing content related to PT faith and professional practice has ebbed. This slowing is in no way related to a lack of desire to continue or burnout. It is mostly related to some major life events that have occurred so far in 2024. So, I don’t often report on personal topics but thought I would give a bit of an update on what’s going on in my household and life.

The biggest change that has occurred this year is that my wife and I were blessed and thankful to welcome another baby into our home this past April! AND it was a little boy! If you didn’t know, I was very girl-heavy in my family, so the Lord was kind and gave my only son a little brother to balance out his four sisters. If you did the math, yes, I have 6 children in total now and am blessed beyond measure. I won’t deny that there is definitely craziness and stress that comes with a large family, but that doesn't mean it is not a gift. Maybe, I’ll write a blog in the future about having a large family as a PT because folks ask me about that quite often. But all that to say, adding another baby and restarting the baby phase has taken extra time and energy, especially as our older children are involved in different summer activities.

The second update in my life right now is more work related because my company is merging with another health system. I was working at a local, independent academic center, but times in healthcare are getting harder and harder so bigger, more established systems are merging with smaller struggling systems. And that is exactly what has transpired for me. A larger, more expansive healthcare system out of Atlanta has agreed to absorb my hospital and all of our  outpatient clinics. It’s certainly been a long process but currently we are in the major portion of the transition - actually training on and switching over every single system from workflow management to EMR to human resources. Needless to say, it’s been a lot of work outside of my normal patient care time as we roll into a completely different company. So, that has taken some time away. I have also gained some insight on work attitudes going through a merger process and will likely share some of what I’ve learned and struggled with through this process in a future blog post. I believe more of this will be happening to smaller, independent health systems and clinics.

Lastly, something that is really exciting and I am super pumped about! Over the past year I have been working at building an online course for the general public! As a PT, you often get asked to solicit advice for pain problems, particularly knees and backs. I’m sure you’ve experienced this, “Oh, you’re a PT? Hey, my back has been bothering me lately, do you think you could…?” So, since healthcare can be complex to navigate and insurance companies are becoming increasingly difficult to deal with, I decided to attempt to take my clinic sessions directly to the patient/consumer. It’s certainly a new idea for me and I don’t know if it will be successful but the pilot course focusing on the comprehensive management of back pain will hopefully be released soon (targeting end of summer) and if successful may lend itself to additional courses!

So, lot’s going on but I hope to continue to consistently blog about faith at work, research, and physical therapy but likely at a lesser rate. I would love to hear from you if you think some of the blog ideas sound interesting or just how your summer is going. Thanks for reading and following!
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Jason 

​***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

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